


Of Assassins and Angels

by The Librarina (tears_of_nienna)



Series: The Glorious People's Republic of the Cafe Musain [4]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassin Grantaire, Book: Night Watch (Discworld), M/M, mystery cameo as the Guildmaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tears_of_nienna/pseuds/The%20Librarina
Summary: Grantaire's activities on the night of the barricades come to light, with unforeseen consequences.Part of a Discworld fusion based onNight Watch, which gets more "Discy" each time I write it.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Series: The Glorious People's Republic of the Cafe Musain [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/104384
Comments: 22
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

When Grantaire answers the knock at his door, he finds a young girl waiting outside with a message. She has an old cockade pinned to her shirt, probably dating all the way back to '89—some of the runners have taken to wearing them, as a sign that they're on 'official business.' He hands her a coin, and she hands him a letter—scarcely more than a sentence in length, asking Grantaire to come to the newly-renamed Palace of Liberty. The note is signed with only a capital _E_ , but even that is hardly necessary. Grantaire dons his coat and steps out into the humid warmth of summer.

In the weeks since the revolution, the palace has undergone significant alterations, though traces of its royal origin are still evident in gilt and marble. There are watchmen at the gate, their battered armor a sharp contrast to the shiny brass and peacock feathers of the old royal guard. They nod at Grantaire in passing, and he slips inside just as the rain begins to fall.

Enjolras has taken a former minister's chambers for his office, with a heavy cherry-wood desk whose sturdiness Grantaire dreams of testing. Perhaps today will give them the opportunity.

They have had little time together in the past weeks. A stolen kiss in an empty corridor, a smile across the vast expanse of a meeting room. They all have been busy, even Grantaire—he does not resent the Republic for stealing Enjolras' attention away from him. In the heady dawn after the barricades, Enjolras had asked him to stay, and he means to do so. Grantaire has learned to be patient; this tumult is a temporary thing.

The office door is open when he arrives. Most of the desk's surface is taken up by stacks of books. Enjolras is bent over the only clear space, peering at a letter as he scratches his response on the page beside it. His brow is furrowed in concentration or disapproval—without context, it's difficult to tell the difference.

Grantaire raps on the door-frame. "You called, my lord?"

Enjolras doesn't rise to the teasing title. "Thank you for coming." He finishes his sentence, then lays the pen aside and stands up. But instead of crossing the room to Grantaire, he turns around to look out the window, hands clasped behind his back.

The window overlooks a street that runs alongside the palace, full of people hurrying past in the warm summer rain. Grantaire can barely see Enjolras' reflection in the glass. He couldn't guess at his expression, but nothing about his posture suggests happiness. This is not a social call, and Grantaire reluctantly abandons his ideas about the desk.

"Are you aware of our youngest friend's recent...antics?" Enjolras asks, without turning around.

Grantaire frowns. "I haven't heard anything lately." Which is cause for concern in its own right. Gavroche has been in unofficial training with the Thieves' Guild for more than a year now, in the hopes of earning a scholarship based on his considerable merits. He's good at his work, but there are always dangers involved in such training.

"It seems he was assigned to break into a rival guild's office and steal some sort of identifiable item from within. I was concerned, to say the least, because I'm well aware of how...cut-throat certain of the guilds can be. But I'm led to believe that these exercises are met with less than the typical amount of force, if the apprentice should be caught."

"Interesting," Grantaire says blandly, like he hadn't once been tasked with whacking the leader of the Merchants' Guild over the head with a paint-filled pig's bladder.[1] "I assume he succeeded, or you'd have sent me to bail him out of a watch-house."

Enjolras finally turns away from the window to face Grantaire. "He borrowed an item from the office of the Assassins' Guild. Quite an accomplishment, I'm told."

From the _Guildmaster's office_? Grantaire fights the urge to grin. Nobody's managed that in living memory. Gavroche will be a master thief one day, if he can manage to avoid making enemies. He makes a mental note to send someone over to headquarters with a discreet sum of money and instructions that will keep anyone from taking out their wounded pride on the kid.

He's picturing the office in his mind's eye, wondering what tome or trinket had snared Gavroche's attention enough to pilfer it, when he recognizes a black-bound book lying closed on the desk in front of Enjolras. Grantaire's heart sinks like a stone in the Seine.

He has the ledger.

"You have the ledger," he says, his throat dry. "I thought that was a myth. A...ledger-nd, if you will."

The pun fails to coax a smile from Enjolras, and that tells Grantaire at least half of what he needs to know.

The ledger has not left the guild office in centuries. It contains page after page of assassins and their assignments, all the way back to the middle ages, each coded in the traditional red ink. The targets are not named; all contracts are given verbally by the guildmaster, to preserve secrecy, and signed by the assassin as their acceptance. Still, the ledger contains dangerous, even damning information, if one knows how to read it. It could throw the city into chaos, to say nothing of what it will do to the people in this room.

"And did you open the box, Pandora?" Grantaire asks.

Enjolras rolls his eyes. "I hardly see how one could be expected to do otherwise. After all, the Assassins' Guild has been responsible for more violence and disaster than every other guild in this city combined. For a sanctioned organization to quite literally set a price on human lives is—"

"A gross oversimplification of their purpose?" Grantaire supplies. It isn't the first time they've had this argument, and by this point he could goad Enjolras in his sleep. "And don't start with that disband-the-guilds nonsense again. It's not a good idea to irritate the people who make a career out of removing irritants with extreme prejudice."

But instead of arguing the point, Enjolras just sighs. "Well. I suppose you would know better than I," he says.

"Pardon?"

Enjolras gives him a hard look. "You can keep playing coy, or you can tell me the truth. It'll come out the same in the end, it's just a matter of how frustrated we'll both be when it happens."

"What's the point? If you already know, then I fail to see why you need me to say anything at all."

He shakes his head. "I saw your name, Grantaire. Or your...code-name, I suppose. But I would know the flourish on that _R_ anywhere."

"Yes, I expect you would."

Silence settles around them. Perhaps Enjolras expects something more from him, some explanation or apology, but Grantaire is already standing on thin, creaking ice. He's not about to test another step.

"You lied to me," Enjolras says at last. "You told me you'd trained at the Fools' Guild."

"I told you I failed out of the Fools' Guild, and that's true. I had all the makings of a court jester, but I couldn't get the hang of gentle mockery. _Grantaire_ , they said, _if you're going to use your wit as a razor, you might as well find someone to hone it for you_. So they sent me over to the Assassins' Guild just to see if I'd make it. Heard it cost the Head Fool a fortune when I actually graduated."

He's rambling, and he knows it, but every moment he's speaking is another moment that postpones the inevitable.

"You're an assassin," Enjolras says. "At first I couldn't guess why you hadn't told us. You always claimed to want to help, yet you hid your greatest skill. But then I deciphered the notations in the ledger. You're listed as _on assignment_."

"That's what the ledger's for. Recording who's busy and who's available to take on a contract."

"And according to the ledger you're _busy_. Doing what, exactly?"

"It's a guild of assassins. I should think the answer to that is self-evident."

"Did you kill the king?"

"Thought that was a suicide."

"And couldn't any assassin worth his training make a death _look_ that way? But if that was your assignment, then the ledger would show that your work was completed. And it doesn't."

"Behind on their paperwork, I imagine," Grantaire says lightly. "It does pile up, you know." Lots of things pile up at the Assassins' Guild. Bodies, for instance.

"Is that so? Or were you assigned to kill someone else?"

Grantaire is not brave. His people strike from the shadows and fade away again. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all, and assassins are very, _very_ discreet.

So when Enjolras meets his eyes, Grantaire wants nothing more than to run. To crawl under the heavy desk, or into the blown-glass depths of a bottle—anywhere he can escape that _look_. He cannot lie to Enjolras, but to tell him the truth is an impossibility.

"Who was your target, Grantaire?"

He closes his eyes. "Don't make me say it."

"Grantaire—"

"You already _know_. You just want a confession."

"I want the truth. I need to hear it."

"You," Grantaire says, the word scarcely more than a breath. "The target was you." He opens his eyes in time to see Enjolras' expression crack, an echo of the hollow ache in Grantaire's chest. There's no coming back from this.

"And how long have you had this contract?"

Maybe Enjolras was right to ask for a confession. Now that Grantaire knows that everything is ruined, the words come more easily. "From the start," he says. "The contract was what brought me to the Musain that first night."

Enjolras betrays himself with a flinch. "Then none of this was real. Nothing we said to each other, nothing we did. Your very presence among us was a fabrication."

"No. That isn't true." He's lost Enjolras and he knows it, but he refuses to let him believe that everything was a lie. "I gave up every intention of fulfilling my contract a week after I started coming to your meetings. I was in denial, of course—telling myself that I was protecting my cover, waiting for an opportunity. But I swear to you, I'd given up on the Guild, long before we ever kissed."

Enjolras arches a brow, the only sign that he hasn't turned to stone. "You'd given up on the Guild? Judging by the ledger, you seem to have neglected to mention that to them."

"Of course I didn't tell them. They might have assigned someone else to the contract. Someone who didn't—care about you. And then I would have had to kill _them_ , which is considered very impolite."

"It would be nice if I could believe that. But how can I? How can I trust anything you say, when you've been lying to us—to _me_ —all along?"

"What will it take for you to believe me? Name it, and I'll do it. Anything. Because I lov—"

"Don't say that." Enjolras' voice snaps, brittle to the point of breaking. "Not now."

Grantaire swallows the rest of his protest. He drops his gaze down to the floor. The boards are darkened with layers of varnish, paler in the center where some plush rug must have once lain. "What happens now?" he asks, not daring to look up. He's all but confessed to regicide, so imprisonment and hanging isn't entirely off the table, but that doesn't even matter to him now.

Enjolras sits back down at his desk and picks up his pen. "I don't know. I need to think. Will you go? Please?"

The dismissal somehow hurts more than anything else. There's nothing left for Grantaire to do, so he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1He would have succeeded, too, if it weren't for the hangover. He'd vomited all over the guildmaster instead and had received half-marks for a successful ambush and a failed assassination. [return to text]


	2. Chapter 2

Grantaire picks up the ledger and tucks it under his arm; Enjolras doesn't protest. He doesn't look back when he walks away, too afraid that Enjolras won't be watching him go. He falls back on his training in composure and comportment, and he hates the irony of it—but it keeps him from breaking down in the corridor. He's relieved not to cross paths with any of their friends, for fear that they would see the turmoil lurking just below the surface of his calm.

When the palace gate closes behind him, he lets out a breath. His spine curves for a moment, bowed in despair, and his next breath rasps in his throat.

Then he straightens up, squares his shoulders, and sets out to pay a visit to the Assassins' Guild.

* * *

The Guild is housed in an unimposing edifice in an unimposing quarter of the city. It isn't _secret_ , per se, but it also isn't advertised. People who need their services know where to find them, and that's enough.

Still, it wouldn't do to be seen going in through the front door. Grantaire climbs a trusty, rusty drainpipe a few buildings over and crosses three rooftops to a hatch carefully concealed among the shingles. A rickety staircase descends from the hatch, and he makes his way down with care, checking the shadowy corners of the attic for any witnesses.

There's an honor code that forbids the practice of their particular arts within the confines of the Guild-house. Of course, rules are made to be broken, and assassins know that better than most. Grantaire suspects that the Guild-house has seen more than its share of spilled blood over the centuries.

He takes a back staircase down to the more populated areas of the Guild-house. He says nothing as he passes, despite the curious looks from professors and hesitant greetings from a few of the students, quickly shushed. It's clear enough that he's here on business. He wends his way through the maze of halls to the door of the Guildmaster's office.

He knocks, but he pushes the door open without waiting to be invited inside. He's not a vampire, after all, and he's not going to cede his momentum to social niceties.

The Guildmaster is sitting at her desk.

One would expect the leader of a guild of assassins to be hooded and mysterious, waxy and cadaverous—halfway to a corpse herself. But she's none of those things. In fact, there's something indefinably maternal about her, something that puts the youngest initiates at ease.

It’s only as they grow that they start to hear the stories. About how she poisoned an infamous criminal in front of his whole crew, with a powder concealed in a false tooth. And when a man importuned one of the seamstresses, the things she did to him put the Agony Aunts off their teacakes.

None of this erases their affection for the Guildmaster, of course, but it tempers that affection with a healthy dose of fear.

She wears her blonde hair pulled back into the same severe knot that she's worn ever since Grantaire was a child. Come to that, she hasn't changed at all in the last fifteen years. Maybe _she's_ the one who's a vampire, then. Or maybe she moisturizes.[2]

"I have something that belongs to you," Grantaire says, dropping the ledger on the desk.

The Guildmaster glances at it, and then looks up at Grantaire. Her expression is neutral, almost pleasant, but Grantaire isn't about to be fooled by it.

"Wherever did you find it?" she asks.

"Unimportant. I didn't want it falling into the wrong hands, so I thought I'd better make sure it was returned."

"How thoughtful of you. The Guild appreciates the gesture."

That's clearly a dismissal. Grantaire ignores it.

"Is there something else you need?" the Guildmaster asks.

"I need you to close my assignment."

"You've completed it?"

Grantaire's composure slips. "You know damned well I haven't, since the target is one of the people currently _running the country_. Come to that, why have you let me go on this long?"

"Pardon?"

"It's been _months_. Standard procedure is to send a second agent to complete the contract after a reasonable period of time, and to...remove the failure before he can further disgrace the Guild."

"Failure," she echoes. "Have you failed, Grantaire?"

He rolls his eyes. "You know I have no intention of murdering Enjolras, so yes."

The Guildmaster's mouth puckers; she's had students demoted for using the m-word in her presence. "There's no need for such language."

"There is absolutely a need for such language," Grantaire counters.

She sighs, and the hint of sympathy in her eyes is more unnerving than any coldness would be. "You're upset."

"Well, the man I love just found out I was hired to kill him. It's been a rough day."

"I imagine so." She gestures to the empty chair in front of her desk. "Will you have a seat?"

Grantaire ignores the invitation. "You haven't answered my question. Why did you let me put it off for so long?"

She sighs and settles back in her chair, hands folded in front of her. "You're an exceptionally talented individual, Grantaire, and clever as well. With a bit more interest in politics, you might have been sitting on my side of this desk one day. But as it is, you may not be aware of the position that the guild maintains in the larger world.

"On the surface, our function is simple. We accept a contract, for payment upon completion, and assign one of our own to the task. The understanding is that we select the best person for the assignment, and this is true. However, there is an unspoken caveat: we send the best person, _as we see it_. And our ends are not always precisely aligned with those of the client."

"You wanted me to fail," Grantaire says slowly. He isn't sure if he's offended or reassured.

She shrugs. "Or merely to delay long enough for the revolution to succeed. You have always been a patient worker, Grantaire, able to wait for opportunity to present itself. I thought that skill would serve our ends best—though, admittedly, I was not expecting the gambit to succeed quite so spectacularly."

The Guildmaster is right—Grantaire has never had any interest in politics. Even this much intrigue makes him feel like he's treading water in concrete boots. "You needed to be _seen_ to support the monarchy, even while you helped to undermine it."

"Politics," she says with a thin smile. "Assassins cannot afford to be myopic, dear. Life is a thriving rose-bush; as such, it requires pruning, from time to time. One must be careful where one applies the shears."

And roses grow best on a diet of bloodmeal. "So you'll cancel the contract?" Grantaire says, returning doggedly to the original point.

"Mm. As it happens, our client's wealth and standing have declined precipitously since the installation of our new government. Since the Guild is no longer in anticipation of payment for a completed contract, we may close your assignment without further ado."

Clearly aware that Grantaire will not take her at her word, the Guildmaster opens the ledger and unstoppers a crystal bottle of ink. Grantaire watches her write _cancelled_ in neat red copperplate beside his initial. A weight drops from his shoulders, replaced almost immediately by stomach-churning guilt. Fixing this hardly means that Enjolras will forgive him.

"While you're here," the Guildmaster says, setting down her pen, "I'll note that your off-the-record activity will be excused, given that it served our ultimate ends."

The Guildmaster has no proof that Grantaire was anywhere near the palace on the night of the king's death, and he's not about to open his mouth and give it to her.

Better to change the subject entirely. "By the way, I'd like to tender my resignation," he says.

"Which I am bound to refuse, as you well know." Assassins don't retire; they get _retired_. "But perhaps you have earned a leave of absence."

"Perhaps I have," Grantaire agrees. "Several years in length, I'd say."

"We shall see."

It's closer to a promise than he'd expected, and he should just say _thank you_ and leave, but there's one more thing he needs to know.

"You're not going to send anyone else after him, are you? On another contract?"

Her smile is thin and sharp as a misericorde. "My dear, there are very few who can afford to offset their own contracts in perpetuity."

Grantaire nods. "Then if you ever send someone, you had better swear out a contract on me, first."

"Duly noted. Farewell, Grantaire. And do take care."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2It's both, actually. [return to text]


	3. Chapter 3

Grantaire goes home. He wouldn't be able to stand the warm camaraderie of a bar or a café tonight. A visit to any of his usual haunts would run the risk of meeting someone who might ask how he's doing—and at this point, he's afraid he might actually tell them.

When it gets dark, he lies down in bed, but if he sleeps, it isn't restful. As soon as it's light, he dresses again, and goes out for a walk.

The past day's rain has cleared some of the stuffiness from the air—the city can rarely be called _pleasant_ in high summer, but this day is better than most. Grantaire spends most of the day walking, letting the fresh air and exercise clear everything else from his mind. He's done all that he can. He'll abide by whatever choice Enjolras makes, no matter the consequences.

As the afternoon wears on into evening, he finds himself returning to old habits, taking a roundabout path towards familiar places. Though much of the city is unchanged, here in the narrow streets there are still signs of upheaval. Footing is treacherous in some places, where enterprising rebels have pried up cobblestones and neglected to return them. Powder burns mark the places where cannons were fired, and glass shards glitter under the few streetlamps kept burning.

And then there is the Musain itself. Even a successful revolution has its casualties, and the café appears to be one of them. It stands empty still, windows shattered and walls pocked with holes from bullets and grapeshot.

But there's a light, small and wan, flickering somewhere on the ground floor. He draws in a deep breath and smells flowers somewhere amidst the sour smoke of the city.

Grantaire steps over the ruined boards of the front door and goes inside.

It's scarcely better in here than it looked from the street. The room smells of damp, and most of the furniture is gone, sacrificed to the cause. A handful of battered chairs and tables have been brought back, tottering like the drunks who once sat at them. Most of the furniture looks as though it would collapse under the mere weight of a wine bottle.

And at one of the tables, a splintery, three-legged affair, sits Enjolras. There's a stub of candle on the table, and its light is what had drawn Grantaire in from the street. The glow of it highlights the hollows beneath Enjolras' eyes—Grantaire isn't the only one who passed a sleepless night.

A board creaks beneath his feet, and Enjolras looks up. "It's you." There's no inflection, no tone that Grantaire can discern in his voice.

"I was passing by, and I saw the light."

"Ah."

It's not much of a conversation, but it's better than the stony silence he'd expected. "What are you doing here, Enjolras?"

He shrugs. "It's quiet, and I needed to think."

"Of course. I'm sorry I disturbed you." Grantaire turns to go, but Enjolras speaks again.

"I wanted to see...if there was anything left to salvage. If it might be repaired, or if it is beyond saving."

Grantaire takes a slow breath and turns back. He casts a glance over the broken glass and the plaster dust, knowing that Enjolras isn't really talking about the Musain at all.

"It might have to be knocked down and rebuilt," Grantaire says carefully. "But the foundation is solid."

"Is it?" A wry smile crosses Enjolras' face. "Perhaps there is some hope, then."

_Hope_. Grantaire had called Enjolras 'Pandora,' faced with the temptation of the ledger. Maybe that means something after all.

Or maybe Grantaire is wrong, and he really _is_ talking about the café. When quiet falls again, he rushes to fill it. "I went to the guild yesterday, to return the ledger. The Guildmaster and I came to an agreement—she closed the contract on your life. Oh, and I resigned. I mean, you can't _really_ resign, but the Guildmaster agreed to a leave of absence. Open-ended."

But Grantaire's discomfort with silence doesn't extend to Enjolras. He nods, but he says nothing. Grantaire is almost pushed to speak again when Enjolras finally looks up.

"Why didn't you do it?" he asks. "After all, you cannot claim to have lacked the opportunity."

"I told you, I—"

"Before that. It was weeks, _months_ even, before we came together. You might have acted at any time, but you didn't."

Grantaire shakes his head. "I didn't change my mind all at once. It doesn't work like snuffing a candle. It was...gradual. But I know when it started."

"Do you?"

"Yes. Three, maybe four nights after I first came here, I took to the rooftops and followed you back to your lodgings after the meeting. I intended to establish your habits, to aid in the creation of a plan. But you stopped along the way, to talk to a group of ragged children. You gave them a coin, advised them to stay out of sight of the Watch, and then gave them your street-number in case they needed a place to sleep out of the rain. The street was deserted; no one was watching but me. So many people only do good to be _seen_ doing good, but there you were, helping them simply because you could. Because it was the just and the kind thing to do.

"I think that was when I began to fall in love with you. I started finding reasons to put off my work, first for days and then for weeks at a time. The night I kissed you, I chose you over the life I'd planned for myself, and I have never regretted it—save that I should have told you the truth. But I was afraid."

Enjolras is silent for a moment, looking down at the scarred surface of the table. "The king," he says at last. "Was that really you?"

"Yes." There's no point in evasion anymore.

"Why?"

He folds his arms and leans against the edge of an empty table. It creaks threateningly, but holds his weight. "Would you believe me if I said it was for love of liberty?"

"No."

"That's fair." He sighs. "There was no contract on his life. It was...freelance, if you will, and the calculation was simple: the king commanded the armies that would be sent to oppose you. If he lived, the revolution would fail—if he died, you had a chance. There was no world in which you could live while the king lived as well, so I made a choice. I chose you over him, and I'd make that choice over and over again, till the very last trumpet.[3] Even if you hate me—and I wouldn't blame you, not in the slightest—I can't be sorry that you're _alive_ to hate me."

"I don't hate you," Enjolras says softly. "In the last day, I've felt nearly every emotion towards you that a person is capable of feeling, but not that."

"Have you settled on one in particular?" Grantaire's voice is careful.

"I think so, though I'm not sure what one would call it. I might ask Marius—perhaps the Germans have a word for it. At any rate, I believe I owe you an apology."

"I—what?"

"I have always claimed to judge a man by his actions, but I failed to take your actions into account when we spoke yesterday. The truth is, although you had a thousand chances to carry out your contract, you never did. You say that you chose me, and you _continued_ to choose me, even when it might have been easiest to do otherwise."

Grantaire holds his breath, afraid to move or speak and shatter this last bit of hope.

A tiny smile crosses Enjolras' face. "And not many people would kill a king to protect someone they love."

Grantaire rubs the back of his neck. "Do me a favor and don't go telling people about that, would you? I need to be able to deny involvement to the Guild, if they ask."

"Of course. I wouldn't compromise you like that."

"Great." Grantaire heaves a sigh that's half-relief and half-despair. "So where does that leave us?"

"It leaves us very late in the evening, with a dying candle," Enjolras says, as the flame flickers weakly. It casts his expression into shadow. He snuffs out the flame and rises from his chair. "I think it's time to go home."

Grantaire stays rooted in place as Enjolras walks past him. If that's a farewell, it's a kinder one than he probably deserves.

"Grantaire."

He turns. Enjolras is standing at the ruined door. He holds out a hand. "Will you come with me?"

Grantaire takes his hand and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3That is, the last trumpet of the last elephant, a common reference to the end of the Disc. [return to text]
> 
> Every time I write something in this series, I think I'm finished, and that clearly hasn't been the case so far, so I won't make that mistake again. For example, I realized who the Guildmaster was about...18 hours before posting, so I'm extremely curious as to how she got to her position.
> 
> I love feedback, and I do try to respond. Feel free to come say hi at my [tumblr](http://thelibrarina.tumblr.com), too!


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